Between Have and Had

Do I have cancer? Or should I say I had cancer? Neither one feels quite right.

Had implies the past, that the struggle and journey are complete, but that is not true. I’m still at my doctor’s office weekly. I’m still in the beginning phases of reconstruction, with at least one more surgery in my future, and while reconstruction is not cancer, it is the direct result of having cancer. Or of having had cancer.

Have implies the present, that the cancer is alive and growing in my body, but that is not true, either. After two surgeries, my margins were negative and my lymph nodes were clear. My doctors determined that chemotherapy and radiation are not necessary, but I will take an endocrine therapy pill targeting the type of cancer I had, or have.

I am between have and had. It is a space filled with worry and relief, uncertainty and hope, fear and joy. In this space my heart overflows with love and gratitude for family and friends who have carried my family through this time with prayers, words of encouragement, meals, comfort items, child care, and much more. In this space I have learned to trust and let go, relax and be still, that taking a nap is productive and that I don’t need to know all the answers all the time. In this space I am between have and had. I am here.

So Loud!

My son is warbling a tune from his latest favorite video game. My twins are belting out the latest Dua Lipa hit. K-pop streams out of my hubby’s phone. My dog is barking at something out the window.

I have a high tolerance for noise. Working at an elementary school and living with three kids and a dog means I’m always in noisy environments. During the last four weeks that I’ve been home recovering, though, I’ve gotten used to the quiet of the day. Which has made me realize that my house is so loud!

Phish Food

Rich chocolate ice cream melts in my mouth. The opposing textures of gooey marshmallow swirls and dark fudge fish play across my tongue. I savor each bite.

As we were sitting in the pre-op room before my first surgery, I told my hubby I wanted some Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food. Since then, we’ve been inundated with delicious desserts and delicacies from friends and families when they come to visit and drop off dinner. I finally ordered a pint of Phish Food on my birthday last week, but didn’t eat it because my mom made me strawberry shortcake and a friend who used to be a pastry chef dropped off a huge, decadent, chocolate fudge cake. Does it get any better?

It’s been exactly one month since I told my husband I wanted some Phish Food. My taste buds buzzed in anticipation as I pulled open the freezer drawer and extracted the pint of ice cream. My mouth watered expectantly as I dished up a chocolatey, gooey scoop into a bowl. My tongue tingled with the first frozen taste. Ahhhhhhhh…Phish Food!

Crying

I was crying.

My twins were crying.

Brick Masters Jamie and Amy were crying.

Will Arnett was even crying.

Because Liam and his mom Emily were sent home on the episode of Lego Masters that we watched tonight. We all loved Liam and his mom. Liam’s adoration of his mom and Emily’s pride in her son made it easy to root for them.

My 7th grade son inspected each our faces for tears. “Are you all crying?” he exclaimed in disbelief. “I guess I’m the only one not in touch with my emotions around here!”

I laughed, partly at him and partly at the rest of us. I mean, really, we were blubbering over Lego Masters!

Air

I finally watched the movie Air. I’ve been wanting to see it since it came out last year, but, with the limited amount of time I have to watch movies without my kiddos, it just hadn’t happened. Now that I’m home recovering, I finally had the time.

My draw to the movie is nostalgic in nature. I’m not a shoe person, or a basketball person, but, I will admit, I am a Ben Affleck and Matt Damon person. Watching Air felt like watching Good Will Hunting (only the actors and I are all twenty years older).

I can’t think about Affleck and Damon without thinking about my childhood best friend. As a teenager, Ben Affleck was my celebrity of choice, and Matt Damon was my best friend’s favorite. When I joined my best friend’s family on a road trip to Boston, we found the high school Affleck and Damon attended and took our picture in front of it. In addition to Good Will Hunting, we both loved Kevin Smith movies, which Affleck and Damon often played in, and took turns watching the movies that had only one actor or the other. Somewhere along the way, we even figured out that our first encounter with Ben Affleck had actually been in 5th grade when we watched the educational series The Voyage of the Mimi as a part of the science curriculum. Affleck was twelve and the star, but I don’t actually remember what we were supposed to learn from the show (sorry, Mrs. Mogg).

In high school, my closet door was an ever-growing collage of Ben Affleck pictures that I cut out of magazines. The one and only time I skipped class, I was upset about not getting the lead in the school play. Instead of going to last period, I went home and watched Armageddon. Watching Affleck save the world in his orange space suit made me feel better (until I started feeling guilty about skipping class).

There came a point in time when Affleck’s choices of roles no longer appealed to me and he fell off of my list of favorite actors. But watching Air was fun, not only because the movie was enjoyable, but also because of the trip it sent me on down memory lane.

Catching My Breath

I took a breath in and released it. In again, then release. Something didn’t feel right. Or was I imagining it?

The noises of the surgery recovery room faded around me as I focused on my breathing. In and out. In and out. In. Out. It was too short. Too shallow. Not enough.

My hubby was saying something, but I couldn’t focus on his words. In and out. In and out. In. Out. My head dropped back against the recovery room recliner, tears slid silently down my cheeks. “I feel like I can’t get a good breath,” I managed to say.

A moment later, a tall nurse in teal scrubs was at my side. He slipped an oxygen monitor on my finger, reclined my chair back, and draped a warm blanket over me. “It’s normal to feel like this when you’ve had an anesthesia block in your chest,” he reassured me. “Your oxygen level is 100, you can’t ask for better. Just relax for a while.”

He left, then quickly returned with something in his hand. He unwrapped what looked like a large graduated cylinder and attached a tube to the bottom of it. He slid a blue arrow about a third of the way up the cylinder and asked, “Have you ever used one of these before?” I shook my head. “You breath in, not out. Try to get this ring to go up to the arrow. It will help you fill your lungs.”

Holding the cylinder, I took a breath in and watched the ring rise about half way up to the arrow. I took another breath in, this time deeper and longer, and the ring made it just below the arrow. I did it again. In and out. In and out. In. Out.

Feeling like my lungs had finally fully inflated, I rested the cylinder on my lap and closed my eyes. Every few minutes I raised it to my mouth again. In and out. In and out. In. Out.

Gradually my fear receded. I was able to focus on my hubby’s words. He said something that made me laugh, and my breath caught again. “Stop making me laugh!” I protested weakly and raised the cylinder to my mouth. In and out. In and out. In. Out.

Eventually I felt strong enough to leave the hospital, taking the cylinder with me. Sometime during the night the anesthesia wore off, and when I woke in the morning my breathing felt normal. Curious, I picked up the cylinder from the bedside table and took a deep breath in. The ring easily shot up past the blue arrow. I set it back down, breathing freely. In and out. In and out. In. Out.

Writing and Munching

Many years ago as an undergraduate student I developed a habit of munching while writing research papers and essays. Now, almost twenty years later, I still get the munchies when I sit down to write something big. Today was no exception.

As of this morning, twelve pages stood between me and finishing the master’s degree I’ve been working on for the past year and a half. As soon as the kids were out the door to school, I sat down, opened my laptop, and immediately felt hungry. I spent the majority of the day writing, and as I wrote, I munched my way through…one slice of peanut butter and banana toast, two handfuls of papadum crackers, three large mugs of Winter Wakeup tea, four bowls of popcorn, five spoonfuls of sausage lentil soup over rice, six baby carrots, and seven mouthfuls of Reese’s Pieces, plus a few leftover chocolate graham crackers my girls left on their snack plate after school.

Seven pages down, five more to go. I can’t wait to see what yummy munchies tomorrow’s writing has in store for me!

Back-Hugs

“Turn around, I need a hug,” P said just before climbing into bed. I turned by back to her, and her arms circled my waist, squeezing, as she buried her face into the back of my shirt.

My 9-year-old twins love to give crushing hugs any time they can. They were devastated when I told them they wouldn’t be able to do that after my surgery because my front would be off limits while the incisions recovered. So they came up with back-hugs instead! The only problem with back-hugs is that I don’t always see them coming. But what’s better than a surprise hug?

Post-Op Excuses

“Mom, why are you still wearing that shirt?”

I glanced down at my purple zip-front shirt, wondering how many days it had been since I put it on. It must have been a while ago if my normally unobservant 12-year-old son noticed.

“Well, I don’t have very many button or zip shirts I can wear,” I rebutted. “And taking a shower is kind of hard, so…”

As I trailed off, I decided it is time to start doing regular things on a regular basis again. It’s been ten days since my surgery and I’ve taken two showers. Tomorrow, I will take a shower, put on clean clothes, and maybe even put some earrings in. After that, I will do essential things like change my socks and underwear on a daily basis.

Or at the very least, I thought, I will change my shirt.

Perro apestoso

No se que comió mi perro, Waffles, pero ha estado muy apestoso todo el día.

Lo olí al otro lado de la sala cuando Waffles estaba durmiendo en la sofá y yo estaba comiendo mi almuerzo a la mesa. “¿Eso es Waffles?” pregunté a mi esposo quien estaba en la sofá también. Él asintió e hizo una mueca.

Nueve horas más tarde, me senté con Waffles en la litera de abajo de mi hijo. “Waffles, ¿todavía estás apestoso?” lo pregunté.

“Si,” dijo mi hijo desde su litera de arriba. “Puedo olerle de aqui.”

¡Mañana solo comida para perros para ti, Waffles!